FARM Minister announces plans to import fodder - Ireland (feed shortages due to weather)

[Martinhouse]

This year I'm switching over to container gardening. The containers are halved food grade barrels, both 30 and 55 gallon sizes. Most of the big ones are already in use in my greenhouse. They grew awesome kale and cabbage this year, thanks to my rabbit "by-products". (I'm thinking I need to breed those rabbits since I have only the one pair right now.) Last summer I grew pruned back okra in the greenhouse when the sides were opened up, but I couldn't keep ahead of the aphids and white flies.

Most of the outdoor containers will be in a small fenced garden. cold-sensitive things like tomatoes will be along the fence where it is easy to hang covers during a sudden cold snap. In the center I can plant greens and root crops.

And I am definitely expecting there will be cold snaps all summer, just like the one that's happening right now. They might not get down below freezing in this year's summer, but I have no doubt that it could happen within two or three years. I don't use plastic for frost protection, but I have gradually acquired lots of mattress pads, both new and used, to cover important things in the greenhouse, and I have a multitude of sheets from yard sales and thrift stores that will keep a light frost off of things like my beans and tomatoes.

I rarely get any fruit from my pear trees any more, possibly for lack of bees, but I think late frosts will more and more affect fruit trees, so I'm not going to replace them. I'm switching over to berries, both cane and bush, which are easier to protect from freezing.

 

[von Koehler]

 

[von Koehler]

You have a better chart?

The date chart is listed backwards IMHO as well. But it doesn't matter.

see post #82 above; check out what happened in year 784.

The Solar Grand Minimum is predicted to be worse then during the Maunder Minimum, but Al Gore adamantly disagrees with this.

von Koehler

 

[WalknTrot]

What Summertyme said about wet years, for sure. We can grow hay and oats up here in the north like crazy (long day-length and hot/humid summers - much as Melodi described Scandinavian summers) but try to get anything dry....
that's why the beef farmers that I work with at my place have gone to putting up haylage. Last summer we were able to do more dry hay than I thought possible, but the ability to bale forage with higher moisture content for cattle is a huge help. I remember summers when we had to bale stuff to get it off the fields, but it was worthless from poor drying or rain, so we just ended up burning it. No more.

Also, for gardening in wet years, I learned long ago to use raised rows in the garden ala Dick Raymond's "Joy of Gardening" book. The roots dry out quicker, and water runs off the garden so most things can survive a wet summer. A lifesaver if you are relying on garden produce. Get the book.

And as for meat storage - both of my parents grew up on farms with "meat boxes" on stilts or in a tree to keep out scavengers. After about the first of November, an insulated box on the north side in the shade is all you need to keep meat frozen for the winter. (Case in point - as per NWS, we haven't had a day above 50 degrees here since Oct. 26th, 2017 and still haven't seen one this spring, with none in sight as/per 10 day forecast. I also remember Grandpa smoking and making dry sausage, ham, bacon, and packing salt pork in the crocks I still have in my kitchen. Then there's canning, as mentioned. Plenty of canned fish and corned venison from the wild in Grandma's pantry.

 

[von Koehler]

 

[von Koehler]

 

[Melodi]

Goats only work where its warm. Has to do with body mass to surface area. Cattle will browse too.

Goats are so important in the Nordic countries they are the symbol of Jule (Christmas season) with straw goats hanging from every tree and giant ones in every shopping mall.

He's called the "Yule Buck"

Swedish and other "northern" goats have long hair and double coats (like Icelandic horses and the local sheep).

In Norse mythology, the trickster God Loki was famous for tying his family jewels to a goat...

Goats can live in places that even the hardy Icelandic, Gotland and other Northern breeds of sheep (who often look almost like goats) can.

Most have great fibers for spinning, most of Scandinavia is NOT the North Pole, not even Finland is like that.

Agriculture has been in full swing since the bronze age, except in areas so far North that you get the reindeer herders and even they still often have hot summers and traditionally made some rye and barley flatbreads that you can still buy today (it was dried over the fire to last the Winter, another good tip for preppers).

You make round, flat loaves that look like some Asian-Indian bread on a griddle then you string them up over the stove to dry out - you often see this on Swedish Jule cards.

From one of my favorite Swedish artists, I have some of his cards framed to bring out every year

 

[Stanb999]

Goats are so important in the Nordic countries they are the symbol of Jule (Christmas season) with straw goats hanging from every tree and giant ones in every shopping mall.

He's called the "Yule Buck"

Swedish and other "northern" goats have long hair and double coats (like Icelandic horses and the local sheep).

In Norse mythology, the trickster God Loki was famous for tying his family jewels to a goat...

Goats can live in places that even the hardy Icelandic, Gotland and other Northern breeds of sheep (who often look almost like goats) can.

Most have great fibers for spinning, most of Scandinavia is NOT the North Pole, not even Finland is like that.

Agriculture has been in full swing since the bronze age, except in areas so far North that you get the reindeer herders and even they still often have hot summers and traditionally made some rye and barley flatbreads that you can still buy today (it was dried over the fire to last the Winter, another good tip for preppers).

You make round, flat loaves that look like some Asian-Indian bread on a griddle then you string them up over the stove to dry out - you often see this on Swedish Jule cards.

From one of my favorite Swedish artists, I have some of his cards framed to bring out every year

LOL, not a Nubian or other African/middle eastern milk breed. They were these. A totally different creature.

 

[Melodi]

I totally agree, very different animals; I didn't know until I started spinning (and later spent time both in the UK and Sweden) that there are "northern" versions of most animals including the Norwegian Forest Cats we raised for awhile - they are the old line of domestic cats that "went wild" in the Norwegian and Swedish forest, some of whom decided that soft barns and hay were nicer places to live.

But they were wild long enough to change a bit from their domestic ancestors - they also have the thick double coat (long hair outside, downy soft hair inside), evolved specialized "long strong and hooked" claws that can climb sheer cliff faces in the wild (or the linoleum above the bathtub before the cat show in the tame) and live cooperatively in prides in the wild (and in barns); with males tolerating their sons often even into adulthood and beyond, which is highly unusual for cats of most sizes.

Other animals from Highland Cattle (and some Scandinavian breeds) to goats, horses, pigs, sheep etc show up with this double coat mutation (a hairy pig is a sight to behold) our Icelandic horse who is quite elderly CHOOSE to stand outside and sleep during the recent blizzard conditions, I looked out and there he was sleeping under sky whose clouds were lit by a full moon with snow pouring on him; in front of a stable full of warm hay, I guess it was a bit too warm for him lol!

These kitties are not mine, but my orange "Great Pumpkin" looked a lot of like orange kitty in the picture; my current forest cat (a pet) is a semi-longhair (they come in both full long hair and semi-long hair) and she's lovely but not as impressive for this discussion.

 

[summerthyme]

The point being, choosing the proper breed of livestock is going to be important! Many will think the long coated breeds like the Scottish Highland cattle would be perfect, but they don't do well in wet weather, either.

Jerseys, OTOH, almost never develop much of a winter coat, and are SO prone to milkmfever even under ideal feeding that I'd hate to count on one for a "survival " milk cow. Before the advent of IV calcium, farmers simply expected their higher producing Jersey cows to die when they had their 4th or 5th calf.. right about the time they were hitting their peak milk production, and at about half -or less- f their normal lifespan.

Our Dexter-jersey cross cow just had her 4th calf, with no sign of milk fever. But we're prepared to treat it, anyway.

Gotta get back to cheesemaking more later.

Oh, I second the suggestion of Dick Raymond's Joy of Gardening. For techniques for maximizing production without a lot of expensive stuff, it's the best.

Summerthyme

 

[Faroe]

Wasn't thinking about turnips. Will get some seed in bulk.

Thread drift here: Was cleaning up the yard this morning, and found a broody hen. Well, Hello, Etta! I'd noticed she wasn't around much lately.
Took all the infertile dead eggs from her and carried her back to the feeder area. She was not happy with me.
Also, this morning, brought home four baby Millefleurs that the neighbor hatched out last week, and thought... Well, it's worth a try.

Etta was back at it, right were she had been. She seems to have accepted them.

 

[von Koehler]

Tamworth pigs are supposed to be a good grazing pasture mast eating breed. They have some reddish hair. I read that they are bred to be "bacon" type pigs.

I think that breeds well adapted to foraging, hardy, and disease resistance will again be favored by homesteaders [or survivors].

Urban dwellers really don't have a chance. It's nearly inevitable the power grid will go down sometime in the next 80 years-it nearly failed in New England this winter.

von Koehler

 

[FarmerJohn]

see post #82 above; check out what happened in year 784.

The Solar Grand Minimum is predicted to be worse then during the Maunder Minimum, but Al Gore adamantly disagrees with this.

von Koehler

What was it that Al Gore said about the Grand Solar Minimum? I don't recall him talking about it at all, or the solar cycle generally.

 

[Melodi]

Tamworths are very popular in Ireland, they do well here and smallholders LOVE them; Summertyme makes a great point about making sure your animals are workable in your type of climate or the one you are likely to have.

I will add to that, study the methods traditionally used for both gardening and food preservation in YOUR area used by traditional people (in the US that would be both Native Americans and settlers depending on the time period).

For example, canning never caught on in Ireland or the UK much because it really didn't catch on until the mid-19th century (in a way that most people could afford), people tend to be VERY conservative when it comes to methods of food preservation as long as they are in situations where one misstep can mean death by starvation (or at least being really miserable for an entire season.

Both North America and Australia know all about canning because both had frontier areas during the time of the mainstream introduction of it for home use; because being in a new place, new methods were imported and used.

Why bring this up - because while I have an All American Pressure Canner and pots I can water bath can in; until very recently canning jars to go with them simply did not exist here. I'm still actually using some jam jars (water bath canning) I ordered from an industrial company that sold to all the major grocery chains and factories about 20 years ago and they said they had no pressure canning jars for the public because the Brits (I had to order from the UK) just didn't do that.

Even now, with "Kilner Jars" (used during WWII for some very limited pressure canning as well as water-bath canning) are back on sale (and their proper double lids are the same as American jars, so I've got some of the reusable ones from the US - the Jars are metric but the lids/necks are not); jars are going to be very rare and almost no one will know how to use them.

"Canning Supplies" here consist of a packet of rubber bands, some circles of wax paper (which is rare here otherwise) and some cellophane; water bath canning is not generally known and "canned" jams are expected only to last a year (and made with 50 percent plus sugar).

Sorry if this is too much information, but my point is that after the SHTF here; yeah we can, do canning as part of our preparations but unlike the US where jars are going to be everywhere (and probably a huge trade good) here, they quantities will be limited and the ability to keep going probably will as well.

Instead, it is better to look at the traditional preservation methods here and in Eastern Europe which include smoking, pickling, salting and drying (usually over the fireplace or in the chimney) to supplement the canning.

In warmer or dryer places; dehydration may be the best idea (and I love my dehydrator and hopefully can keep it working for a long time) but whatever it is look at local traditions as back up to modern methods.

One of the HALLMARKS of the early (1300's) phase of the Maunder Minimum was WILD Weather swings like we are seeing now; I know the "global warming" crowd claim that for themselves but in reality if you look at the weather during that period it wasn't so much ice and snow (though that happened) but wild winds, rains, storms and floods that washed away landscapes and farmer's fields.

Hail that could knock down trees, "The Great Wind" in Dublin that destroyed the Cathedral, famines in Germany etc, etc..Eventually it settled down and was just really cold (a lot) with long snowy Winters and short, sharp Summers in many places but the early weather was like a see-saw; with some years still warm, but others simply wet, cool and never drying out enough for proper planting.

 

[NC Susan]

Wasn't thinking about turnips. Will get some seed in bulk.

Thread drift here: Was cleaning up the yard this morning, and found a broody hen. Well, Hello, Etta! I'd noticed she wasn't around much lately.
Took all the infertile dead eggs from her and carried her back to the feeder area. She was not happy with me.
Also, this morning, brought home four baby Millefleurs that the neighbor hatched out last week, and thought... Well, it's worth a try.

Etta was back at it, right were she had been. She seems to have accepted them.

50. When to give up looking for eggs to hatch?

Well
I Just learned 61 new things about Broody's on this link ->
Since the chicks should be hatching around day 21, if there are no signs of life from about day 23 then I think that the egg will not hatch.
www.allaboutchickens.info/broody-hens-guide/

 

[Faroe]

50. When to give up looking for eggs to hatch?

Well
I Just learned 61 new things about Broody's on this link ->
Since the chicks should be hatching around day 21, if there are no signs of life from about day 23 then I think that the egg will not hatch.
www.allaboutchickens.info/broody-hens-guide/

We don't have a rooster, so these were infertile eggs to begin with.

 

[mecoastie]

Wasn't thinking about turnips. Will get some seed in bulk.

Thread drift here: Was cleaning up the yard this morning, and found a broody hen. Well, Hello, Etta! I'd noticed she wasn't around much lately.
Took all the infertile dead eggs from her and carried her back to the feeder area. She was not happy with me.
Also, this morning, brought home four baby Millefleurs that the neighbor hatched out last week, and thought... Well, it's worth a try.

Etta was back at it, right were she had been. She seems to have accepted them.

Did this last year. Our final broody of the year was on infertile eggs. We got 6 chicks and shoved them under her. She was one proud momma.

 

[von Koehler]

Found this chart in Al Gore's "proof of global warming" slide show.

What it actually shows is that CO2 increases FOLLOWS, NOT PRECEDES, changes in temperature.

What an idiot; cannot even interpret his own evidence!

von Koehler

 

[FarmerJohn]

In any case, the chart above suggests that we're headed into a regime of drastically higher temperatures.

What's the hypothetical mechanism for rising temperatures preceding rising CO2?

 

[TxGal]

And we woke up to temps in the upper 30s.....in Central/South Texas.....in April.

And we have more cold fronts coming in this week. Looks like we'll have another week of buying more hay, weeks beyond when we usually stop feeding hay because normally it's warm and the grass is growing nicely. Simply not our normal weather.

We haven't begun our garden yet, don't have tomato plants in....way beyond our normal planting time. I didn't want them to freeze, now I wonder about the growing season this year.

 

[Melodi]

Our tomato seeds have simply refused to sport it has been so cold; hopefully, that will change this week now that temperatures are finally in the 50's during the day.

I caught the "farming forecast" on the news today and they said the ground in the entire nation was still "totally saturated" and some areas got 400 percent of "usual" rainfall for this time of year in the last week.

Things are expected to improve with some areas dry enough for plowing, planting and pasturing by next week; IF it doesn't rain too much from the Atlantic fronts (followed by another Eastern front) this coming week.

Personally, I have never seen this much Eastern moving weather (coming in from Europe rather than the Atlantic) in the 22 plus years we have lived here.

That isn't that long in historical terms, but it does suggest a shift in the weather pattern at least for the moment.

 

[von Koehler]

In any case, the chart above suggests that we're headed into a regime of drastically higher temperatures.

What's the hypothetical mechanism for rising temperatures preceding rising CO2?

A nearby star, called the Sun.

von Koehler

 

[TxGal]

Not good (hope the photo copies over): https://www.iceagenow.info/start-of-the-no-crop-summer/#more-25372

Start of the No-Crop Summer?

hope U.S. and Canadian farmers can handle this.

Yes, it’s colder than average in Minnesota and Wisconsin, says Mike Augustyniak, Director of Meteorology at WCCO in Minneapolis. “The world as a whole, however, is still warmer than average.”

That might not be much consolation to the farmers and ranchers trying to survive in the blue areas shown on this map.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZ79EiuWsAAbVZl.jpg



https://twitter.com/MikeAugustyniak...m/2018/04/04/record-snowfall-april-minnesota/

 

[Martinhouse]

I've been reading about crop failures in the southern hemisphere and in Europe for the last couple of years, at least, as well as problems in North America, so I find it hard to believe that "The world as a whole, however, is still warmer than average."

That Twin City meteorologist perhaps doesn't want to let go of his global warming beliefs?

 

[von Koehler]

Not good (hope the photo copies over): https://www.iceagenow.info/start-of-the-no-crop-summer/#more-25372

Start of the No-Crop Summer?

hope U.S. and Canadian farmers can handle this.

Yes, it’s colder than average in Minnesota and Wisconsin, says Mike Augustyniak, Director of Meteorology at WCCO in Minneapolis. “The world as a whole, however, is still warmer than average.”

That might not be much consolation to the farmers and ranchers trying to survive in the blue areas shown on this map.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZ79EiuWsAAbVZl.jpg




https://twitter.com/MikeAugustyniak...m/2018/04/04/record-snowfall-april-minnesota/

 

[TxGal]

Thank you! Having computer issues this morning :-)

 

[Martinhouse]

von Koehler, 4 and 6 averages to 5. 1 and 10 average to 5.5, but while it is higher, that 1 is still going to kill my tomatoes!

 

[von Koehler]

https://joeforamerica.com/2018/04/scientists-admit-global-warming-never-existed/

Al Gore LOST! 100’S Of Climate Scientists Now Admit Global Warming Never Existed

By Scott Osborn Last updated Apr 7, 2018

Over the last few years, Global Warming has taken a strong hit as proof of serious data manipulation has surfaced, and now scientists are coming out of the closet everywhere showing true data that man-made climate change never even existed.

Hundreds of scientists involved in a plethora of recent scientific papers are admitting that the scare about global warming is based on hysteria and false science.

An impressive flurry of scientific, peer-reviewed reports have published over the past 15 months (46 alone in 2018). Much to the surprise of alarmist scientists, global warming is nonexistent.

In fact, even during 2017, there were 150 graphs from 122 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals indicating modern temperatures are not unprecedented, unusual, or hockey-stick-shaped. Nor do they fall outside the range of natural variability.

The Global Warming Policy Forum Explains:
The authors write that the contemporary warming of the 20th century “does not stand out in the 2500-year perspective” and is “of the same magnitude as the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Climate Anomaly.”

A number of strident global warming scientists prefer to dismiss the significance of Europe’s temperature record, claiming that it is local in nature and does not tell us what is really happening globally. However, other papers fully contradict this. For example, a paper by Wündsch et al., 2018 shows us that the warming today in South Africa also is nothing unusual.

Temperature reconstructions show the same is true in Southeast Australia, according to McGowan et al., 2018, Northern Alaska (Hanna et al., 2018), the Tibetan Plateau (Li et al., 2018), South Korea (Song et al., 2018), Antarctica (Mikis, 2018), to cite just a few among dozens of others.

“Warming holes” surprise scientists. Meanwhile new findings by Partridge et al., 2018 show in fact that other regions have cooled. The eastern US “annual maximum and minimum temperatures decreased by 0.46°C and 0.83°C respectively.”

The surprising winter cooling has led scientists to dub the eastern US a “warming hole. That is where scientists blame oceanic cycles for the unexpected cooling.

Greenland within normal, cooler than 1930s. Greenland often gets cited by alarmists as a climate canary in a coal mine due to its massive ice sheets and their potential to cause dramatic sea level rise should they melt. But a brand new study by Mikkelsen et al., 2018 shows that surface temperatures going back over 150 years are lower than they were in the 1930s!

But that’s not all!
In the chart below from a study by Polovodova, we see that 20th century warming is perfectly normal in a long-term historical context. It was no warmer .In reality, it is slightly cooler than either the Roman Warm Period or the Medieval Warming Period.

What we also learn from the papers is that these warming periods were global. Not, as alarmists like to claim to support their scaremongering thesis, local.

In further bad news for climate alarmists, it seems that two of their favorite bellwethers of global warming doom. Greenland and the South Pole, are cooling not warming.

Here’s Greenland, from a study by Mikkelsen.

This puts Greenland’s recent warm spell in its historical context: over 150 years it wasn’t unusual. Temperatures now are cooler than they were in the 1930s.

A separate study confirms that Greenland is on a cooling trend:


Furthermore, much to the surprise of global warming scientists, Greenland temperatures have again been falling since 2000. Westergaard-Nielsen et al., 2018 examined the most recent and detailed trends based on MODIS (2001–2015). They concluded that if there is any general trend for Greenland it is “mostly cooling”.

As is the South Pole:

At the other end of the planet at the South Pole. New findings by Cerrone and Fusco, 2018 confirm the large increase in the southern hemisphere sea ice. They suggest it “arises from the impact of climate modes and their long-term trends”.

They write that the results indicate a progressive cooling has affected the year-to-year climate of the sub-Antarctic since the 1990s and that the SIC [sea ice concentration] shows upward annual, spring, and summer trends.

 

[vestige]

I've been reading about crop failures in the southern hemisphere and in Europe for the last couple of years, at least, as well as problems in North America, so I find it hard to believe that "The world as a whole, however, is still warmer than average."

That Twin City meteorologist perhaps doesn't want to let go of his global warming beliefs?

There was a sign in our local Kroger store last week saying due to crop failure by their strawberry producers (don't know who that is/was) there will be no more strawberries. I assume this only applies to our local Kroger store?

 

[TxGal]

There was a sign in our local Kroger store last week saying due to crop failure by their strawberry producers (don't know who that is/was) there will be no more strawberries. I assume this only applies to our local Kroger store?

I read an article last week that said there was a large loss in the strawberry crop this year, and that there would be serious shortages. We're planning a Costco trip, I'll check them while there. Will likely do Kroger later in the week, and will also check there. Strawberries are my favorite fruit..sigh....

 

[Bubble Head]

There was a sign in our local Kroger store last week saying due to crop failure by their strawberry producers (don't know who that is/was) there will be no more strawberries. I assume this only applies to our local Kroger store?

I think this applies to the California crop. They had drought, fire, and apparently now some rain. Kroger stores and Sams Club are bringing in Strawberries from Mexico, and the Chile Blueberries are coming in. I like the Chile Blueberries for mixing in my homemade Keifir.

 

[Martinhouse]

I'm planting raspberries this year and enlarging my strawberry garden. Berries are a lot more dependable than fruit trees, even though they can't be stored like apples in a root cellar. When I was a little kid we didn't have a freezer, and the berries Mom canned tasted wonderful during the winter.

I may try dehydrating some of my berries this summer. I have built double screened trays for if/when I can't use my electric dehydrator.

Also planted a couple more blueberry bushes this year.

 

[TxGal]

I'm planting raspberries this year and enlarging my strawberry garden. Berries are a lot more dependable than fruit trees, even though they can't be stored like apples in a root cellar. When I was a little kid we didn't have a freezer, and the berries Mom canned tasted wonderful during the winter.

I may try dehydrating some of my berries this summer. I have built double screened trays for if/when I can't use my electric dehydrator.

Also planted a couple more blueberry bushes this year.

Agree on the berries. We've had so so luck with strawberries and blueberries here at our place, but blackberries have been outstanding (we have thornless). Dewberries are native here, and do very well on their own. Fruit trees are more challenging here, without a doubt.

 

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn
In any case, the chart above suggests that we're headed into a regime of drastically higher temperatures.

What's the hypothetical mechanism for rising temperatures preceding rising CO2?

A nearby star, called the Sun.

So now we've been having rising CO2 and rising temps in parallel (see post #98) while the quiet solar cycle means less energy output from the sun. The way I read it is that the lower total solar irradiance (TSI), even if only 1 W/sq. m. less (.07%) should make the earth's climate cooler. The greenhouse gas theory says that increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are pushing the climate warmer. The chart at post #98 shows the huge spike in CO2 that we're experiencing now but lacks a similar spike in temperatures (so far.)

Temperatures have been rising but not yet in proportion to the spike in CO2. It remains to be seen if the CO2 induced warming hypothesized by Svante Arrhenius over 100 years ago is enough to compensate for the reduction in TSI that is forecast.

 

[von Koehler]

 

[summerthyme]

Drove 300 miles yesterday (half late morning and again in late evening) across western N.Y. state. Woke up yesterday morning to 2" of snow, and drove through snow on both trips ranging from flurries to full whiteout conditions. It was in the mid teens both Friday and Saturday nights.

I'm thankful that the warmish February (our normal February and March weather essentially switched) didn't get the fruit trees budding, and hopefully if Spring actually ever comes, it will stay warm, and not go directly from winter to summer, as we've seen a couple of times recently. If I had a penny to my name, I'd be seriously look8ng at one of those freeze dryers, as fruit stores better long term in that form than any other.

But if we get decent crops, I think the Excalibur dehydrator will be getting a workout. I was passing out some of our "extra" frozen strawberries, raspberies and blackberries to the kid's families, but have decided to hang on to the rest for now... we had bumper crops last year, but who knows what this year will bring?

I'm really grateful I invested in both bird netting and insect netting last year... enough to cover all the aforementioned berries, although I need another big square if bird netting for the elderberry bushes...blasted English Sparrows love them, and sometimes even clean the green berries off the bushes! I thought bird netting was sufficient until we had a massive Japanese Beetle invasion (damned illegal aliens, anyway! Pretty much every animal, insect or disease pest that hurts our food crops was imported.. you'd think we'd learn, but I guess cheap trinkets and "free trade" are more important than eating!)

I bought some fine gauge insect netting and draped it over the bird netting over the blueberry bushes, and saved the late berries... until then, I was losing at least 2/3rds of the berries to damage. It was great to see the netting covered with beetles who couldn't get to the bushes!

Whatever is coming is going to require the ability to adapt, often at lightning speed. It can be done... too many people, though, would rather gripe and complain.

Summerthyme

 

[Melodi]

My handyman is going nuts trying to find hay for his horses, including the two pregnant mares he would like to bring over to keep my elderly gelding (who thinks he is an alpha herd stallion) company and have their foals in peace; he said it will be several weeks before the grass is suited for three horses.

Right now he has my guy on a long lead, Mosey has figured out how to go in a circle and walk himself out (but we are watching him) so he can only eat certain areas of the grass (and not stomp all over it).

Today was the second really "Spring Day" and the drive to pick up my "chunky" knitting machine was lovely and green, but still wet and muddy in places; rivers are high and the water running quickly.

It is pretty, but still to wet for farmers and livestock providers to do much with; it also rained again today (that's normal) but on top of the recent heavy rains it is a problem.

 

[von Koehler]

Based on my gardening and preserving experiences, I had the best results with a two stage approach.

First, the vegetables [like green peppers] were cut into "recipe" size and dehydrated.

The second step is just as important.

The produce, which now was just a faction of its original volume, was put into glass mason canning jars, and vacuum sealed.

The advantages were that the produce was dry, reduced in size, ready to be cooked, in a 100% insect and rodent proof glass container.

The kicker was because it is in a vacuum, there is no oxidation which causes food to go "stale-tasting." No mushy or spoilage.
Nuts vacuum packed a year ago taste as fresh as new when the canning jar lid is popped off. Most people do not know that some nut crops, like almonds, only come in once a season and this way you can buy in bulk and keep them in prime condition until needed. A quart size glass jar is a great way to portion out the nuts-it's so easy to just keep munching them.

I bought a simple hand vacuum pump device for Y2K [yes I am that old] which still works fine and could be home made inexpensively.

Processing loads of peppers when the plants were flush was the most time efficient and least laborous way to store them. Even tomatoes cut into rings, then dehydrated and vacuum packed, was faster and easier then pressure canning. Although I did both because ultimately there were different intended uses.

von Koehler

 

[von Koehler]

Melodi,

Were the recent weather events a surprise to the general public or were they still within "the to be expected range?"

von Koehler

 

[Melodi]

Melodi,

Were the recent weather events a surprise to the general public or were they within "the to be expected range?"

von Koehler

Starting with Hurrican Ophelia and going on from there, they were not in the "to be expected range" at all; and worse they were all over the map from torrential rains, to bitter cold snaps and snow.

Last week saw 400 percent of average rainfall for the time period on the East Coast and we had several extreme snow events (many years we get no snow at all).

The last time we had feed shortages was 2013 and the last Winter snow this bad was either in the 1940's or 1962 depending on which reports you listen to (and how it is defined).